NTT Docomo puts its Tizen Launch Plans on Hold

NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan’s biggest mobile phone carrier has indefinitely shelved its plans for a Tizen launch, which was slated for late March 2014.

The company has said that the main reason for it putting Tizen on hold is that research from IDC Japan has showed the overall smartphone market (in Japan) has only grown a mere 2% from April to September. There are other rumours that this was because of Development delays with the Tizen OS and that it was not ready to be deployed on a smartphone, but nothing public has been stated.

“The market is not big enough to support three operating systems at this time,” Docomo spokesman So Hiroki

NTT DoCoMo have been one of the loudest voices calling for a Tizen release and this news can only be seen as a major set back to Tizen. They are however still working with and contributing to the Tizen project in order to develop their own Tizen product line.

This isn’t the first time that a Tizen launch has been delayed with original expectations of a late 2012 release which became a late 2013 release which now becomes, well, the jury is out on that one at the moment.

As Tizen repeatedly doesn’t find its way out of the starting blocks, its allowing Firefox OS, Jolla Mobile and potentially BlackBerry to gain market share, which can only be a bad thing.

There is no comment from Samsung at this time.

All eyes are now looking towards Mobile World Congress 2014 to see if there is a potential Tizen unveil there. Will Samsung reveal anything? Lets hope so ……

Technology enthusiast that has a career in networking and network infrastructure. Been involved with the Maemo OS since 2008, and then went on to work with MeeGo and now cover everything to do with the Tizen OS.
In my spare time I do some photography and also been known to visit the gym :-)

It’s a shame, to say the least. What we should not forget is that introducing a complete new OS in any market demands the maximum user experience and customer “greed”. As ubuntu and firefox are delayed for some time it means they might have the same concern. I’d rather wait till Autumn to get a real good Tizen smartphone than to see it going down due to some minor glitches. iOS7 still has a bad ring to it although most problems have been tackled.
Illustrious names like Symbian, BlackBerry and WindowsMobile/8.0 and 8.1 would offer enough hesitation for any marketer, including those with brass balls. S

Still, I would like to get my hands on one or two and simply test it….

Johny

No problem. It’s nothing for tizen project. Other carriers support tizen phone now. It will take 5~10 years to settle down. So don’t give up. Many customers want open and secure os.